In a stunning exposé, Bellingcat investigators have exposed the name of a female Russian spy who spent more than ten years posing as a jewellery designer socialite to obtain access to NATO leaders in Italy.
Olga Kolobova, a spy for Putin’s GRU military intelligence agency, started her covert operations in 2006 under the name “Maria Adela Kuhfeldt Rivera.”
“Maria” identified herself as the daughter of a Peruvian mother and a German father, born in Peru, but subsequently abandoned as a kid in Moscow and raised by adoptive parents. She presented herself to everyone who came into touch with her in this way.
She spent years traveling across Europe, settling in Malta and Rome in 2010 where she became friends with Marcelle D’Argy Smith, a former Cosmopolitan magazine editor, before taking off for Paris and filing a patent application to launch a jewelry business.
She married a Russian-Ecuadorian guy after moving back to Italy in 2012, but their love affair ended quickly.
One year later, he unexpectedly passed away, giving ‘Maria’ the freedom to once again wander Italy until landing in Naples, the location of NATO’s Allied Joint Force Command.
There, Peruvian-born “Maria” made a name for herself as a custom jeweler and nightclub proprietor. Her lively personality and love of fun enabled her to develop relationships with several NATO personnel, including colonels of high rank.
However, Kolobova is really the daughter of a Russian military officer who was peddling counterfeit jewelry produced in China while enticing US and European security personnel to unknowingly provide critical information for her Kremlin superiors.
One of many people befriended and unwittingly duped by Kolobova (centre) was Marcelle D’Argy Smith (left), a former editor of Cosmopolitan magazine who met ‘Maria’ in Malta in 2010
‘Maria’ married a Russian-Ecuadorian man in 2012 but their romance was short lived. He died mysteriously just one year later
Kolobova is pictured here in an image shared on the Instagram profile used by ‘Maria’
Operating under the alias ‘Maria’, Kolobova developed an extensive network of friends in Naples, Italy, and established friendships and relationships with several NATO employees and even high-ranking colonels (‘Maria’ is pictured to the right in this image found on Facebook)
Kolobova kept up a number of social media profiles while using the alias “Maria” and shared a few images of herself over the period of many years.
Kolobova, who is now thought to be in her mid-40s, was a member of Russia’s famed “illegals” program, a network of spies who go through years of rigorous training to get them ready for lengthy postings overseas.
Once ready, illegal immigrants are placed in a nation and given well designed false identities, where they spend years or even decades leading double lives.
While covertly pursuing a far more sinister mission on behalf of the Kremlin, the deep cover operatives are required to advance their professions, form connections, and in some instances, even create families and raise children.
Because of their complex cover stories, extensive training, and lengthy missions, they are exceedingly hard to catch. As a result, Kolobova successfully pretended to be Maria for more than ten years until returning to Moscow in 2018.
Kolobova was never apprehended by the law, thus her GRU superiors probably summoned her back from Naples.
The last Facebook post made by “Maria” a few months after she left Italy said that she had to “tell the truth” that she had cancer and had had chemotherapy; this was probably a ruse to allow her to leave her friendship groups without raising any red flags.
Only after Bellingcat investigators learned that the Peruvian Ministry of Justice had deemed the “Maria” identity to be false and that the Russian domestic passports issued to the alias bore numbers closely resembling those of other previously identified agents, including a GRU officer involved in the poisoning of Russian defector Sergey Skripal on British soil in March 2018, that Bellingcat investigators learned her real name had been concealed.
Kolobova’s objective may or may not have been successful, but Bellingcat investigators found that she often interacted with NATO and US Navy officials, some of whom “would have had access to on-base images or classified legal files and databases.”
The spy is said to have visited a wide range of NATO or US military-organized events, including NATO annual balls, different fund-raising dinners, and the annual US Marine Corps balls, in addition to making a great number of house visits to the homes of several NATO leaders.
Kolobova traveled widely throughout Europe, southeast Asia, and the Middle East, destinations she claimed were connected to her jewelry company Serein, which she claimed gave her access to events attended by high-ranking foreign officials. Kolobova also had a strong network of friends and romantic partners who worked for NATO.
A now-deleted Facebook post from the business that Bellingcat was able to find seemed to show “Maria” shaking hands with Prince Khalifa bin Salman Al Khalifa, the former prime minister of Bahrain, after giving him a set of personalized cufflinks.
But several of the items uploaded on Serein’s now-defunct website and Facebook page seemed to resemble budget-priced Chinese jewelry.
Adela Serein – the social media username used by Kolobova’s ‘Maria’ alias, is tagged in a Facebook post celebrating the 2017 Ball of NATO’s Joint Forces Command. Investigators say Kolobova attended countless NATO and US military events and befriended many officials
Kolobova is the daughter of a Russian military official, flogging Chinese made knock-off jewellery while luring European and US security officials to unwittingly divulge sensitive information
The last post shared on the Facebook profile of ‘Maria’, published shortly after she returned to Moscow having left Italy for the last time, claimed she had cancer and had undergone chemotherapy
Olga Kolobova, a member of the notorious network of deep cover “illegals” and the GRU foreign intelligence agency of Russia, started spying as early as 2006 when she used the alias “Maria Adela Kuhfeldt Rivera” (taken from Adela Serein’s Facebook profile).
Kolobova’s duty in Naples ended in 2018, and it is suspected that she has not yet left Russia.
Bellingcat claimed to have purchased two properties in Moscow, one in 2013 while ‘Maria’ was traveling there and the other in 2020. She also claimed that order records obtained from a Russian food delivery service showed the GRU agent had frequently placed food orders for delivery to the Russian Pension Fund’s offices.
Although Kolobova’s present whereabouts are unknown, it seems doubtful that she has given up playing the espionage game.
Phone records reveal that, in February of this year, on Russia’s widely honored military holiday known as the “Day of Defenders of the Motherland,” a number connected to the spy called one of the GRU’s top leaders, Igor Kostyukov.
Not only did Kolobova escape capture and return to her own country undetected, but according to investigators, neither European nor American secret service agencies were even aware of her presence.
There is no proof that NATO’s internal security service or Western counterintelligence agencies were informed of the location of a Russian military snoop stationed strategically near to the Joint Force Command Center of NATO in Europe, Bellingcat said.
Given the continuing Russian conflict in Ukraine and Russian President Vladimir Putin’s warning of harsh repercussions should Western troops join the battle, the disclosure of Kolobova’s genuine name will raise considerable security concerns for NATO and Western intelligence services.